


The Water Theory

by feyrelay



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Zodiac (2007)
Genre: 1960s, Aged-Up Peter Parker, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Daddy Kink, F/M, Historical References, Kidnapping, M/M, Moodboards, Multi, Newspapers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Recreational Drug Use, Serial Killers, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Unreliable Narrator, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-09
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-04-23 21:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19159711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyrelay/pseuds/feyrelay
Summary: 1969 was a hell of a year for San Francisco, America in general, and Peter Parker in particular.A month-by-month account of the comings and goings of the friendly neighborhood Zodiac Killer.CNTW = It's a mystery about a serial killer with a suspected sexual motive, read at your own risk.





	The Water Theory

**Author's Note:**

> The era-appropriate playlist for this is [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3kcRqjbugUuHZ2YS9BNUxM?si=Cn0U3ihlQpShNXCUnsZBZQ) on Spotify. The song for this chapter is Time of the Season by The Zombies.
> 
> Thank you to [ ironspider](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theheartchoice/pseuds/ironspider), [tangodoodles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tangodoodles), and [Affectionary](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/Affectionary/) for your help with brainstorming. I ended up going off in a wild direction with my own ideas and just writing this all in a frenzy, but I'm grateful for the time we spent chatting so I had people to bounce ideas off of to get to this point.
> 
> This fic is 100% written, but not 100% edited. I'm releasing chapters as fast as I can.

Chapter 1: Slow Down Or Stop (Prologue)

 

“A chronicle is very different from history proper.” - Howard Nemerov

 

 

 

Monday, June 9th, 1969

San Francisco, Calif.

 

Peter wakes up exhausted.

He really enjoys spending weekends at Tony’s, don’t get him wrong, it’s just that Tony always wants to stay up a little later than Peter would prefer, especially when they have work in the morning. Tony tends to coax and cajole, faux-reasoning that “it takes so much less time to get to work from here than from _your_ pad, baby”, which is technically true. It takes no time at all to get from Tony’s houseboat, anchored as it is in the marina near the Presidio, to the Chronicle.

Still, the disruption to his routine isn’t entirely welcome, and the reminder that Peter lives in a much less centrally-located neighborhood stings, just a bit.

That’s the difference between the star writer of the crime column and the lowly second-string cartoonist, he supposes. He tries not to let it grate on him too much.

His time will come, he reminds himself, rolling over and snuffling into his older lover’s throat. Peter enjoys Tony like this, still and pliant. His breathing is shallow.

“Wake up, old man. Scathing critiques of the police won’t write themselves, you know,” he murmurs, sparing Tony a kiss before he climbs deftly over his body. “I’m gonna wash up. If you get up, you can join me. I might make it worth your while.”

Tony waves him off, still mostly asleep.

Peter rounds the corner to the narrow boat bathroom. He’d rather shower, but he doesn’t want to go through Tony’s supply of fresh water. He settles for a bum bath in the sink, all the important bits. He feels decidedly unsexy swiping at the trail of semen from last night’s activities but condoms make no sense to either of them. Why pay money to fuck with rubber between you?

Speak of the devil, Peter’s jarred from his thoughts when Tony comes up behind him and takes the wash rag from him, crowding Peter into the sink. “I can do that for you, honey.”

Peter regards himself in the mirror as Tony scrubs at his tender hole. He hates himself a little, for liking it. He can’t look at the reflection of Tony’s sleepy, but salacious, grin. Especially not once his brain catches up to his senses, and he smells the skunky smoke, nose tingling.

“Tony, c’mon, please,” Peter chastises, shoving himself away from the sink in such a way that Tony is pushed away too, Peter’s back to his chest and Tony’s back to the wall. “You know I hate when you wake and bake. We have work, and you’re gonna get the smell in my hair.”

Tony finishes his toke and holds it in, pressing a kiss to Peter’s shoulder, just his dark eyes showing in the reflection, before he releases a cloud of smoke right against the bones of Peter’s shoulder joint. “Too late, kid. Plus,” he continues, drawing back to manhandle Peter around to face him, “I’m gonna make it up to you.”

He sinks to his knees and Peter is torn between rolling his eyes and moaning. They don’t strictly have time for this.

Still, at the ripe old age of nineteen, Peter has learned not to argue when he’s about to get his cock blown.

And—again—because he’s nineteen, it doesn’t take but a few minutes for his smooth rocking into his pseudo-boss’s hot mouth to start to stutter. He grips at the cheap material of the sink vanity and tries to think of anything he can to stave off his impending orgasm. Nixon, Tony’s surly divorce lawyer Janet, those kids that got killed last December at Lake Herman-

It’s no use. Tony allows Peter to come down his throat and then pulls back, smug, to wipe his mouth. “Still mad at me, sunshine?”

Peter scrambles to unscramble his brain. “Uhhhh, I mean. I am, because you can’t just fix everything with sex and drugs. But, also… whoa. Wow. Thank you for that.”

Tony stands and lets Peter wind his arms around him; he holds him up. Instead of a kiss, Peter gets Tony’s hot breath against the shell of his ear. “You’re welcome and I’m sorry, baby. You know I love you. I just need it for the pain, you know. The grass, it. It helps,” he softly explains.

Peter widens the space between them to touch at the tangle of scar tissue in the center of Tony’s chest. “I know. I know it hurts in the mornings especially.” He turns around to brush his teeth, knowing how Tony doesn’t like to talk about his war injury.

Tony surprises him though, and speaks up, voice frustrated, “Well, yeah, it does. Especially when the goddamn Japanese clock radio gadget comes on and the first thing I hear is how many fucking kids like you died in Vietnam over the weekend, like it doesn’t even matter. Like I didn’t lay flat on top of army transport trying to cover Korea so people would know what a crapshoot war is, and it means nothing.”

Peter tries to be playful and understanding, but he also knows they’re gonna be late for the Chronicle if Tony continues on a tear like this. “I know grandpa, I know, tell me your war story; just put that joint out first.”

It’s the wrong move. Tony looks at Peter like he’s a stranger, like they don’t understand each other. (Maybe they don’t.)

“Listen, when that branch broke, I thought I was dead. Turns out it was worse. You ever seen your own sternum sticking out of you, splintering out like shark teeth? Huh?”

He doesn’t raise his voice, just sounds haunted. Peter doesn’t raise his, either. “No.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. And what was it for? I thought I was saving the world with my journalistic integrity and wherewithal,” he snorts. “What a joke.”

Peter plucks the last of the burning roach from Tony’s slackening grasp, for lack of anything else to do. “You’re not a joke to me.”

Tony bites his lip, a tiny smile peeking through as he comes back ever-so-slightly to reality and takes in Peter’s still-wrecked appearance. “You wanna borrow a clean shirt for work?”

“Please.”

“You’re gonna have to earn it, then,” Tony teases, seemingly making an effort to diffuse the ugly tension of the morning. In response, Peter snags the ashtray off the vanity, puts the last of the joint out, and runs.

He manages to snag the little inlaid box that he knows contains the rest of the stash, from its place of pride on the curio shelf in the main hallway. Tony’s hot on his heels.

Peter clambers up the captain-style bed, reaching for the small window above the headboard. “I will throw this shit out into the Bay. See if I don’t, Anthony Stark.”

Tony’s not impressed, _thumping_ onto the bed next to him. “Okay, I see you. And I see you not doing anything.”

“Tough talk from someone about to lose his stash,” Peter goads him.

“There’s more where that came from,” Tony shrugs, smoothing a hand up Peter’s extended back. “Besides, _you_ are talking tough for someone whose bare ass is in my bed, this fine morning.”

Peter stops playing at trying to open the window; he thinks the hinge needs oiled, or possibly the seal. “We don’t have _time_. Plus, it’s not exactly smart of me to go walking around the office smelling like you. Honestly, what kind of boy do you take me for?”

(For all his talk, though, he settles back down against his pillow and gives over the little box for Tony’s safekeeping.)

“The kind who’s gonna wear my shirt to work, anyway? Nobody cares, Peter,” Tony answers him.

Peter blows out a breath. “They really, really do. Gale Whittington could speak to that, or did you forget?”

“Me?” Tony hams, pulling Peter in towards him and affecting a cartoonishly innocent voice, “... forget our first meeting? _Never_.”

“You were handsomer, then. The past few months have really started to ravage those chiseled features.”

“Yeah, and you were quieter; the last few months of steady fucking have really loosened your tongue,” he gets for that. Tony soothes the slight with a little kiss to his jaw and then hands Peter the offending alarm clock/radio combo.

“I can’t believe what you spent on this piece of-”

“Just hold on to it. Tell me when it’s quarter ‘til and I promise I’ll get us to work at only a semi-scandalous hour.”

“Yes, daddy,” Peter says, a curve to his lips.

(They get to the Chronicle only ten minutes late.)

***

Pepper shoots Tony a severe look when they finally do show up to the bank of desks, conspicuously arriving together. She’s always been kind to Peter and her and Tony’s divorce had been amicable, as far as he knows, but he avoids her.

His desk is over by Quentin’s anyway, and no matter how nice the former Mrs. Stark is, he’s not about to stand around and talk with her with her ex-husband’s fresh spend inside him.

Unfortunately, she finds him later in the morning, anyway, after he’s turned in his illustrations for the day and is organizing his schedule. He’s got two court cases he needs to get at least a rough sketch for, and they’re ten miles and fifteen minutes apart. Peter wonders if it would be suspicious if he asked Tony to give him a lift. He wants to go over and find out where in the city Tony will be headed, today, but Peter sees Pepper coming.

Her hair shines nearly as much as her smile as she leans on his desk; she’s not quite as proprietary with other people’s space as Tony, but it’s a near thing.

“Hey, Pete. How’s it going this morning?”

“Alright, Ms. Potts,” he manages. He means to ask after the girls, her and Tony’s twin daughters, but he’s distracted by the approach of the office manager, Nat. As far as he knows, Pepper and Ms. Romanoff get along quite well, but he hopes she’s not about to come over and chastise him for chit-chatting. She’s a tough cookie.

His desk-mate, Quentin, perks up, too. Peter thinks he might have a thing for redheads.

“Hello, boys. Pep,” Nat greets them. “I’m just making the rounds. They printed up the new employee roster and calendar for the summer quarter. Here, take some.”

Peter glances over it; he gets enough of the hiring and firing gossip from Tony that he knows it hasn’t changed much since the spring.

Nat must clock his expression. “Seems like a waste, yes? With so many changes coming soon?”

“Changes?” Quentin speaks up from next to Peter; he’s looking over Peter’s shoulder at the roster as well, but then looks up at Nat.

“Didn’t you hear about the promotion?” Pepper inquires, smiling over her cup of mid-morning coffee. “Tony gave me the scoop in-between waxing poetic about his plans for a sail into the Bay for a July 4th fondue party.”

“Oh boy, can’t wait for that idea to get rolling. Five bucks say he ends up delegating all the planning for that,” Peter grouses.

Pepper takes another delicate sip, while Nat talks to Quentin about his supply of charcoals and nice pencils. “Oh, c’mon, Peter, it won’t be that big of a deal. Forty people from the office, a couple of kegs, a bunch of melted cheese. I’ll lend Tony my fondue pot so you’ll have two.”

“Do you need decorations?” Liz, the third-string illustrator, asks sweetly, coming upon the conversation. It looks like her work had been interrupted by Ross asking her to bring him a coffee again, the ass.

Peter thinks on it a moment. “I guess not, not really. Let me ask,” he tells her, leaning back in his chair to catch Tony’s eye across the office. Peter mimes streamers; Pepper helps by miming a little flame so Peter can use his hands for a fondue pot before he makes little jazz hands in the air to signify fireworks. Tony nods, amused, still on the phone.

Liz makes the gesture for ‘streamers’ again and then draws a question mark in the air. She even does it backwards so it will appear to be the right way around to Tony; Peter likes Liz a lot.

Tony holds up a single finger, gesturing for them to wait. Nat finishes her chat with Quentin.

“Speaking of supplies, is there anything else besides the new cameras I should order for this department?” Nat asks crisply, though she has a playful air to her.

“Cameras?” Peter repeats, trying not to hope too much.

“That’s right. Rhodey gave me the tip from the top brass this morning,” Tony intimates, joining the conversation after finishing his phone call. Peter and Quentin both perk up, and Pepper makes room for him in their little circle. “The Chronicle is finally getting with the times; they’re going to be hiring at least two photographers, to hear Rhodes tell it.”

Peter shares an excited smile with Quentin and Liz, determined not to dignify Tony’s double wink and eyebrow wiggle with even a morsel of attention. Quentin returns the smile.

“May the best man win,” he says, extending his hand to shake.

Tony snorts, but keeps the conversation going. “To answer your question, Liz, my dear: I don’t think I’ll need any decorations for the fondue party.” He counts off on his fingers, “One, I’ll only be inviting my closest confidantes, and two, my ship needs no ornamentation.”

“It’s a _houseboat_ , not a ship,” Peter says flatly, though he smiles.

“That’s enough out of you, kid. I know when my charm isn’t wanted,” Tony says, saluting the group. “But, really, don’t worry about decorations, sweetie,” he says to Liz. “Maybe Nat will print up some flyers with my slip number and the pier address? That’s really all we need to have a rip-roaring time on The Good Ship Maria.”

He bats his eyelashes at Nat, ridiculously, and Peter tries not to laugh at his antics. “It’s not a ship!”

Tony winks. “Oh, it’s a ship if I say it’s a ship.”

***

Three weeks later, as the party looms closer, it should be the talk of the office. Tony’s parties are legendary, and everyone knows to expect there to be more than beer and fondue for the Fourth.

Instead, Tony and Peter exchange tense glances the morning of the 30th as everyone discusses what went down in New York on Saturday.

Sure, Peter and Tony had finally started seeing each other after running into one another at the protest over Whittington’s outing and firing (and politely pretending not to recognize each other from the Chronicle for at least twenty minutes). But Peter never thought he’d see the day that the gay liberation movement actually involved tussling with the cops. He feels naive about it now; of course it would. Half the cops were gay and in the closet. They probably hit the hardest.

Peter spends all morning trying to get someone to send him a facsimile of a photo or sketch of the Stonewall Inn. Preferably with the broken glass, he thinks cynically.

He’s not the only one thrown off their routine; Pietro, the courier, doesn’t make it in until Michelle is making the rounds with the regular mail. He’s usually earlier than that, zipping around the city on his bike to deliver important missives and legal documents.

Peter knows Pietro and his sister live somewhere in the Tenderloin, which he imagines is in quite the uproar today, so he means to stop the blond boy for an encouraging word, but Pietro appears to be on a mission, striding right past him.

“Mr. Beck?” he asks, slight Eastern-European accent peeking through. Peter tilts his head, though he loses track of the courier as Pepper walks over.

“How can I help you?” Peter asks her politely. He wonders if she has any more information about the potential promotion to photographer. Ross, Fury, and Rhodey are supposed to be making the decision soon, and Peter imagines Tony and Pepper will be some of the first to hear.

The conversation never gets off the ground, though, because he hears Maximoff’s cocky voice behind him. “I’m sorry, Mr. Beck, sir. But you’ve been served.”

There’s a crash of a coffee mug hitting the floor as Pepper’s eyes go wide and Peter turns.

Quentin is looking through the papers. He seems angry and embarrassed and puzzled all at once. Pietro’s already beating a hasty retreat, but Quentin calls after him. “Did you actually talk to Ros?! This is sick and insane!”

Peter has no idea what to say, not with the entire office looking their way. Thankfully, Pepper steps in.

“Quentin? It’s gonna be okay. It’s not the end of the world, look at me and Tony…”

Speaking of Tony, Peter tries to find him. Oh, he’s helping the coffee guy, Stan, wrangle some towels to clean up the mess.

Quentin answers Pepper, in shock, “We’ve only been separated since Christmas, I didn’t think it would come to this, and so soon. Plus, this really won’t look good for the promotion. That bitch ruined my chances.”

Pepper pulls back, but Quentin hastily apologizes. “Sorry, I’m just shook up, that’s all.”

Peter fills the awkward silence with the first reassuring thing he can think of. “At least you’re too old for the draft, right? You won’t be out of a marriage deferment?”

Tony, with Stan’s towels, snorts from the floor, where he’s trying to get coffee up off the floor. “If Beck is ‘old’ to you, then what am I?”

It's gonna be a long day.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave comments, if you can! This one was a real labor of love, and a lot of historical research went into it.
> 
> And yes, I'm still sticking by Myster-Man as a ship name. Come at me, bros.


End file.
